Gato piment is by far my favorite Mauritian snack! If you’ve never had gato piment, these are deep fried balls of ground yellow split peas and are among the bestsellers at any food stall on the streets of towns and villages back home in Mauritius. I still remember the ‘marchand gato piments’ on the street corner right by our shop in Curepipe. Often times, when we didn’t know what to eat for lunch, we’d get some hot crunchy gato piments and eat with French baguette and butter. It was the best lunch ever!
Well, since I have been living abroad, I have had to make them myself as we do not have those ‘marchands’ at the corner of every street here in Washington. Although now in Melbourne and in Canada, there are a lot of Mauritian cafes or restaurants where you can get typical Mauritian food which is great. There’s one that just opened in Montreal called ‘La cuisine de Tati’. Check it out on Facebook. All their photos of Mauritian dishes look really good and tasty!
Every now and then I have a craving for either gato piments or gato frire which is potato, bread and eggplant slices fried in a tasty batter. Yum! Well, I did make gato piments last weekend and I did not follow the recipe that I normally use.
GATO PIMENTS
Ingredients:
1lb of yellow split peas (soaked overnight and ground in a food processor)
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 tsp baking powder
Chilli powder or fresh chillis
1 – 2 tbsps of ground cumin
Salt
1 bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced
A few leaves of ‘carri pouler’, finely chopped
How To:
Mix all ingredients together, shape into small balls and deep fry.
It’s that easy! Enjoy!